March 26, 1996

NYNEX CONTACT: Media Relations, (212) 395-0500

NYNEX Launches BigYellow "America's National Yellow Pages"

NEW YORK, NY -- NYNEX today announced a major advance in online shopping directories with BigYellow(sm), an interactive directory of almost every business across the United States. The company also announced new product features, a major promotional campaign for BigYellow, as well as sales relationships with major advertising and Internet services companies.

The creation of BigYellow culminates a decade of leadership in electronic directory services by NYNEX, including a year of experience as America's first advertiser supported yellow pages on the Internet.

Mat Stover, president and chief executive officer of NYNEX Information Resources Company, said BigYellow (http://www.bigyellow.com) is already America's most comprehensive online yellow pages service. BigYellow includes the names, addresses and phone numbers of more than 16 million businesses nationwide. With more than 4,000 advertisers and more than 9,000 advertisements, BigYellow far exceeds any other online shopping directory in content and is one of the largest advertiser-supported sites on the Internet. The service is free of charge to consumers.

"Americans are born to shop and BigYellow is born to help them go shopping," said Stover. "BigYellow is America's national yellow pages. Shoppers can now find whatever they need, around the corner or across the country. BigYellow is as useful and simple to use as the yellow pages and as powerful as the Internet. It's the yellow pages made better," Stover observed.

BigYellow gives shoppers more power to find, to compare and to retrieve up-to-the-minute, detailed information about any product or service in any geographic area they select. BigYellow gives sellers the power to merchandise online: providing comprehensive information and, if they choose, targeting messages and valuable offers through electronic messaging.

"BigYellow is also a business story," Stover emphasized. "We have blended the success, expertise and resources of a billion dollar yellow pages shopping directory company with outstanding information processing technology and the Internet to create a new business to meet the needs of the millions of buyers and sellers online today and the millions of others who will be in the future."

BigYellow is a flexible, powerful and easy to use advertising environment. Thomas Saidnawey, president of a charter advertiser on the service, Pemberton Orchards of Cambridge, Mass., calls BigYellow "a great place for businesses seeking new, more direct and less expensive ways to reach new and greater audiences throughout the world. It's a brand new advertising medium and the best advertising tool on the Web."

Stover said a large-scale BigYellow promotional campaign would begin tomorrow in traditional and online national media. Web users are flocking to the BigYellow site, which currently is receiving more than 100,000 hits a day. Stover said he expected that number to grow rapidly as a result of the promotional campaign and the quality of service and operational support customers receive.

New customers also will soon find BigYellow through Infoseek Guide (TM), the most frequently used Internet search service, which will display the BigYellow service as a choice on its main navigation bar. Infoseek Guide receives 35 million hits a day.

"We believe that BigYellow is the best shopping directory on the Internet just as we believe that Infoseek Guide is the best information directory on the Internet," said Robin Johnson, president and CEO of Infoseek. "We want to make it easy for our customers to benefit from both services."

"We agree with Mr. Johnson," Stover added. "BigYellow customers will find Infoseek Guide as the featured service to `Explore the Net' from BigYellow's home page."

In another unique initiative, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's 215,000 member businesses nationwide will be eligible for special introductory pricing on their first year of BigYellow advertising through offers delivered in U.S. Chamber publications and by direct mail.

BigYellow advertising is being sold online, through direct mail, and by premise and telephone sales representatives. BigYellow has forged relationships with many of the most prominent advertising agencies in America, including those who specialize in placing yellow pages advertising. The agencies include: The Berry Network; Bozell, Inc.; D'Arcy, Massius, Benton and Bowles; Ketchum Directory Advertising; LBC Communications; Milnat Associates; National Yellow Pages Unlimited; Ogilvy and Mather; R.H. Donnelley; Saatchi and Saatchi; Wahlstrom and Company; and Yellow Pages Resources, Inc.

"We have established BigYellow sales agent agreements with a wide range of firms," said Stover. "And we invite anyone who is selling traditional yellow pages advertising or advertising on the Internet to join us in providing space in BigYellow to their customers as a valuable and complementary advertising investment."

BigYellow will provide advertisers with an easy way to track the effectiveness of advertising messages. Usage is audited by a system developed by Nielsen/I-Pro, one of the leading auditing services on the Internet.

BigYellow's more than 4,000 current advertisers include national and local businesses. Their advertisements on BigYellow range from business profiles and custom-designed pages to direct links to their sites on the Internet's World Wide Web. Businesses can place advertising proximate to their listings within BigYellow or in conjunction with specific business category headings like "restaurants" or "attorneys."

Advertising prices for BigYellow range from $111 a year for a Web site link to $300 a year for a one-page text ad, to $2,400 for a three month banner ad in a business category. Businesses may also choose to purchase custom ads, using graphics and art work created by advertising and design firms and linked to BigYellow.

BigYellow has established relationships with a number of creative agencies, including Arc Slide Technologies, Digital Interactive, Larkin, Meeder and Schweidel/The Galileo Group, McDougall Associates, Show & Tell, Inc., Sonalysts Studios, Unicom Communications, and Warren Industries.

Among enhancements to BigYellow unveiled today, the graphic interface has been made more attractive and easier to use so that searches can be conducted faster. For example, buyers can conduct a streamlined search directly from the BigYellow home page.

Other enhanced features include:

-- Links to online shopping directories from 40 other nations, as well as a link to BigYellow's Directory Store, where users may purchase any of more than 6,500 different phone books from around the world.

-- Specially-designed access for those who are visually impaired, developed by BigYellow with the National Center for Accessible Media.

-- A Shopping Tips section that provides direct Web links to consumer information relating to 50 of the most popular BigYellow shopping categories.

-- A section called Web Business Guide that provides businesses with a wealth of information, including links to tax, financial, marketing, and legal information as well as a tutorial about the World Wide Web, including a segment devoted to Web marketing.

--A "How To Advertise" section that enables businesses to create an advertising presence on the Web through BigYellow. Also, creative agencies that would like to design advertising for BigYellow may register through a form in this section.

"BigYellow will be adding a companion directory of individual and government listings, expanded search capability using maps, and an embedded capability to use electronic messaging to complete secure transactions," Stover noted. "We are taking a phased approach to enhancements, because our customers have told us that there is plenty to use and get experience with based on the service as it is today."

Businesses and consumers nationwide can learn more about BigYellow by calling toll-free, 1-888-BIG-YELLOW (1-888-244-9355).

BigYellow was developed by NYNEX Information Technologies, a subsidiary of NYNEX Information Resources Company, a leading provider of shopping and marketing information services, including more than 300 yellow pages and white pages directories in the United States, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Gibraltar.

NYNEX is a global communications and media company that provides a full range of services in the northeastern United States and high-growth markets around the world, including the United Kingdom, Thailand, Gibraltar, Greece, Indonesia, the Philippines, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

The Corporation is a leader in the telecommunications, wireless communications, cable television, directory publishing and entertainment and information services.

FAX copies of recent NYNEX news releases are available free of charge, 24 hours a day. Call 1-800-331-1214 and an automated system will provide instructions.

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